Paul Ryan will be issuing his annual fantasy budget. It will consist of changing Medicare to a voucher system, changing Social Security to a private investment program by giving over to Wall Street all our Social Security money for them to invest in risky investments. If the market crashes and you lose it all, thats just too bad, die and dont be a burden on society. The Ayn Rands (who by the way ended up having to live on Social Security and Medicare before her death) and TeaPublicanThugs will not give up. It doesnt matter what the PEOPLE want, it is what these extremist ideologues want. They are so focused on their ideal of a Libertarian-Anarchist-Anarcho-Capitalist society that they will not stop and think about what it will do to millions of Americans. A Medicare voucher sounds innocent enough, but the reality is no insurance company wants to insure seniors, who consume the largest portion of the healthcare funding because of their multiple chronic medical needs. That was the reason LBJ created Medicare. If an insurance company did insure seniors, they would have to charge thousands of dollars PER MONTH to cover the cost of care. If a senior is living on a fixed income from a small pension or Social Security, there is no way that they can afford a policy even with a voucher. Secondly, voucher amounts will of course decrease over time to the point they are at zero, shifting the cost onto seniors who cant afford the cost shift. Besides, everyone pays a Medicare Premium while they are working that goes into a trust fund, like Social Security, that pays for most of Medicares funding. But that premium has not been raised in decades in relationship to the advancement in medical technologies and the increase cost of delivery. So it requires additional funding from the general fund to make up the difference. One solution is to raise the premium we have deducted from our paychecks each month. But that is hard, because wages have gone down because of various factors including automation of labor, conservative ideology devaluing labor value, anti union acts by Conservatives, exporting jobs, etc. So no one will want an increase in Medicare premiums to pay for the system, which is more efficient delivering healthcare than any private insurance program in the United States. It only costs about 8% of the premium dollars to run the program versus 20% or more for private insurance companies. Also remember when you start to receive Medicare, you still have to pay a premium each month starting at $99.00 per month and going up depending on your income. Also, Medicare does not pay for everything and there are deductibles and co-payments required. So there are still a lot of out-of-pocket costs to seniors. Social Security is a separate program from the general budget. It is self funded from premiums we all pay from our paychecks or self employment tax. To extend its life is to raise the cap on income subject to the Social Security premium, its not really a tax, but a premium by prepaying into a fixed benefit pension plan, like an annuity. The only cost to the general fund is the interest paid on the treasury bonds that the Social Security Trust Fund purchased with our premium payments. This was authorized by Reagan to pay for his Star Wars program and his huge 180% plus increase in our national debt.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 19:22:03 +0000
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